Milton Keynes Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 113 complaints. Of these, 41 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 52 complaints. We investigated 20 complaints.
More about this data
Complaints dealt with – the total number of complaints and enquiries considered. It is not appropriate to investigate all of them.
Not for us – includes complaints brought to us before the council was given chance to consider it, or the complainant came to the wrong Ombudsman.
Assessed and closed – includes complaints where the law says we’re not allowed to investigate, or it would be a poor use of public funds if we did.
Investigated – we completed an investigation and made a decision on whether we found fault, or no fault.
Complaints upheld – we completed an investigation and found evidence of fault, or the organisation provided a suitable remedy early on.
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council – the council upheld the complaint and we agreed with how it offered to put things right.
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations – not complying with our recommendations is rare. A council with a compliance rate below 100% should scrutinise the complaints where it failed to comply and identify any learning.
Average performance rates – we compare the annual statistics of similar types of councils to work out an average level of performance. We do this for County Councils, District Councils, Metropolitan Boroughs, Unitary Councils, and London Boroughs.
For more information on understanding our statistics see Interpreting our complaints data.
Complaints dealt with
Not for us
Assessed and closed
Investigated
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Complaints upheld
We investigated 20 complaints and upheld 15.
75% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Milton Keynes Council's population, this is 5 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
5.3 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 2 out of 15 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
13% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 10% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 9 cases.
In 9 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.100% compliance rate with recommendations.
This compares to an average of 100% in similar authorities.
Annual letters
We write to councils each year to give a summary of the complaint statistics we record about them,
and their performance in responding to our investigations.
Reports
The Ombudsman has published the following reports against Milton Keynes Council
Find out more about reports
We issue reports on certain investigations, particularly where there is a wider public interest to do so. Common reasons for reports are significant injustice, systemic issues, major learning points and non-compliance with our recommendations. Issuing reports is one way we help to ensure councils are accountable to local people and highlighting the learning from complaints helps to improve services for everybody. Reports are published for 10 years.
Milton Keynes did not do enough to support woman
A Milton Keynes woman who agreed to care for a relative’s child when they no longer could, is to be offered £30,000 after the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found the council did not do enough to help ease their overcrowded living conditions.
Service improvements
The Council has agreed to make the following improvements to its services following an Ombudsman investigation.
Find out more about service improvements
When we find fault, we can recommend improvements to systems and processes where they haven’t worked properly, so that others do not suffer from these same problems in future. Common examples are policy changes; procedural reviews; and staff training. Service improvements from decisions are published for 5 years and those from reports are published for 10 years.
The latest 10 cases are listed below – click ‘view all’ to find all service improvements.
Case reference: 25 011 975
Category: Education
Sub Category: School admissions
- The Council has agreed to review its admissions policy to ensure that in the future, requests for admission outside of chronological age group are considered in line with the relevant law and guidance
Case reference: 25 006 747
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council have agreed to implement staff training to ensure officers are aware of the Council’s duty to maintain oversight of securing provisions set out in EHC plans
Case reference: 25 005 477
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will review its process for sending out amended Education, Health and Care Plans to make sure these are always sent to parents and young people when they are finalised, with a covering decision letter. It will identify any improvements it can make to this process to prevent the fault from this complaint happening again. It will send us the outcome of its review and, if applicable, send us a timebound plan of when it will make any changes
- Through email or a staff briefing, the Council will remind relevant staff of the legal duty to ensure the bulk of a child or young person’s special educational provision in their Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan should be in place within five weeks of a Tribunal’s order to amend the EHC Plan. In particular, it will remind staff this means the Council should not wait until after the final amended EHC Plan is issued to start the process of securing special educational provision.
Case reference: 24 022 292
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- Within four weeks of our final decision, the Council will:· Remind Reviewing Officersto:o Ensure reasons for their decision are included in the review in linewith the statutory guidance. o Ensure they direct housing applicants to the correct process tochallenge a banding decision, in line with the Council’s Allocations Policy.
Case reference: 24 022 038
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will take action to ensure the specialist placement allocation panel keeps a note of its decisions.
- The Council will hold a training session for officers in its education department. That training should cover the Council’s section 19 duties and its role in arranging and monitoring alternative provision.
Case reference: 24 022 016
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Adoption
- The Council will devise an action plan setting out how it will comply with the timescales in the children's statutory complaint procedure.
- The Council will provide us with a report of all statutory children's complaints received between 1 October 2025 and 1 October 2026. The report should be anonymised and include the date each complaint was received and the dates of responses under each stage of the procedure.
Case reference: 24 018 449
Category: Transport and highways
Sub Category: Traffic management
- The Council has agreed to remind officers of the need to keep notes of ongoing cases to ensure matters can be picked up promptly in the event of unexpected absence and delays avoided.
Case reference: 24 018 294
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council should share a copy of our Out of school, out of sight? focus report to relevant staff. It should highlight key points to ensure officers are aware of their responsibilities in relation to the Section 19 duty. This should include that it is the Council’s ultimate duty to arrange alternative provision, what factors they should consider when deciding if there is a duty for it to act, including assessing the child’s individual needs and circumstances. It should also remind staff to properly record its reasons for decisions made at the time.
Case reference: 24 014 921
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will:•remind officers dealing with children out of school of the need to ensure any alternative provision is sufficient to meet the Council’s section 19 responsibility and to ensure the number of hours provided is kept under review;•remind officers dealing with children who are out of school about the need to keep parents up to date with what is happening.
Case reference: 24 012 832
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- consider making a record of housing (temporary accommodation) panel meetings
- consider the LGSCO guide for practitioners: unsuitable temporary accommodation and set out what improvement actions will be taken
Last updated: 4 April 2015